Coalition Turns to Kirkuk
To Get Iraqi Oil Flowing

By

Bhushan Bahree and

Chip Cummins Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Updated March 31, 2003 11:59 p.m. ET

With prospects receding that exports from Iraq's southern oil fields will resume anytime soon, efforts by coalition forces to secure the country's northern oil fields have taken on added importance in restoring Iraq's economic base once the war ends.

The U.S.-British alliance dropped 1,000 paratroopers about 80 miles from the northern city of Kirkuk last week, and more continue to arrive. The region by the same name, where the discovery of oil in 1927 put Iraq on the world's petroleum map, was pumping more than 800,000...